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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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"the rock is choss, except for Moonlight"
Hmmm,... guess thats it, thats all, huh? Nothing left to do.
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WanderlustMD
Trad climber
DC Area (it's as bad as you've heard)
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Looks like the real deal, as far as I can tell. Inspiring, to say the least.
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FullMonty
Trad climber
Originally from IN - Now living in Leadville, CO
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I do not know Alex personaly, but several of my friends do. They have seen him in Rifle and at the Creek and say that he is increadible. Im gonna call it now - first free solo of El Cap. Hell, he already did the Salathe, and linked the headwall into a enduro pitch - thats a pretty good start
peace
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pFranzen
Boulder climber
Portland, OR
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What a mind-blowing ascent.
My only question (and it's not ethics-related, I promise) is whether he had a harness and rested at belays at all, even for a minute, or if he just blasted up it with no gear at all.
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Blasting up that thing in 83 minutes wouldn't leave much time for resting...
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Brick- If I was an editor at Climbing or Alpine you better be sure I wouldn't take anything reported on this forum as solid evidence. I'd want to actually talk to the person or someone whom I trusted first. Alex may be "beyond reproach" but SuperTopo Forums sure as hell isn't.
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graham
Social climber
Ventura, California
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Yeah Juan he top roped it, but it was after led it on sight. Which by the way is the true measure of your climbing ability.
bump
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Dr. Rock
Ice climber
Castle Rock
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He used an Ipod, unfair.
I saw his set list on ebay.
Metallica..Metallica...and then...Metallica.
What, no Foo Fighters?
What is your favorite "pump it up" music?
I'm a Blackmore fan, myself.
Kill The King!
I will do it in 82 minutes.
So what?
Then you clean it in 79, with a spring laoder, so what?
Ever read Popular Science?
They got this spring loaded rope climbing gaget, good for 100 foot spiderman dynos.
so what.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Yes Mighty I am well aware, I was the first to post a comment on the article. We were talking about why it took so long for them to post the article.
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Dr. Rock
Ice climber
Castle Rock
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You Guys ever hear of Gram Parsons?
Its cool to steal a stiffy:
"Phil, Michael and Gram drove back to The Joshua Tree Desert, stopping only to buy more beer and a container of gasoline. They took Gram's remains into the desert, poured gasoline inside the coffin and set him ablaze. The two were arrested several days later and fined $700.00 for stealing and burning the COFFIN (it was is not against the law to steal a dead body). Gram's partially burned remains were finally laid to rest in a modest cemetery near New Orleans, LA.
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Degaine
climber
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Nice work, Alex !
I met Alex about 8 years ago at Granite Arch in Sacto, he was probably about 14 at the time. One of the nicest kids you could ever meet.
Granite Arch has a lot of “natural features” that Del designed and built: walls with cracks, nubs, crimpers, etc. – even with the roar of Hwy 50 the outdoor structure of “natural features” is fun to traverse around on in the late evening during the summer. Anyway, indoors there were plenty of full “natural” routes – no Freestone or Metolius “unnatural holds” as part of the routes, just the featured wall as Del had imagined it. One of these routes was rated “5.13a” – whether that hard or not I have no clue but some of the chest thumping “5.12” gym rats had tried and flailed plenty of times.
Anyway, Alex and I were climbing together one night, and he decides he’d like to give the 5.13a a go, never tried it before, and cruises up it like he’s doing warm up laps.
At the time maybe he’d climbed outside once or twice, so it was not clear to me yet how passionate he was about climbing. He didn’t have a driver’s license so the gym was about all he could get on a regular basis. It was pretty obvious that he had talent and that if he stuck with it the sky was the limit.
After I started climbing at Pipeworks, saw him less often, now that I’ve moved far away, haven’t seen Alex in a few years. Prior to moving ran into him a couple of times at the Leap on days he was running solo laps on Haystack, the Line, Bookmark, etc. The guy’s definitely had free-soloing mileage under his belt for a while.
Cheers, Alex.
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marky
climber
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Apr 10, 2008 - 12:57am PT
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soulful
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James
climber
in between climbs
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Apr 10, 2008 - 01:12am PT
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$5 says Honnold punched the clown reading the accolades on this thread.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 10, 2008 - 03:45am PT
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Whoa is me. What's become of the sport when nobody does any bold climbing anymore and the youngin' only clip bolts!
Opps, wrong thread.
El Cap is only a matter of time, but that time is looking shorter all the time.
I remember when the idea of even a free El Cap route was almost inconceivable but somebody soloing it?
We have to be very careful about what we believe to be impossible
Peace
Karl
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Apr 10, 2008 - 04:10am PT
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Karl: Free Rider was free soloed...are you not counting that as an El Cap route?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 10, 2008 - 04:18am PT
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I'm waiting for the non-imaginary person to free solo it!
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marky
climber
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Apr 10, 2008 - 04:21am PT
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square root of negative one -- imaginary, maybe, but cosmically necessary
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona, Spain
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Apr 10, 2008 - 04:52am PT
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When it comes to free soloing El Cap, I think people need to be very careful about what they imagine to be possible. The consequences of being wrong are a lot worse when you over-estimate what is possible, rather than under-estimate it. You can have plenty of fun climbing imagining that 5.12 is impossible, even if you're wrong.
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travelin_light
Trad climber
california
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Apr 10, 2008 - 10:06am PT
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Amazing accomplishment. Proud.
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